I understand all your points Normy and am very sympathetic about the problems of Ron Pearsons Maths. I may have got through the study of Pure Mathematics at A level in 1967 but the result was more miraculous than reflective of any understanding.

All Greek to me. Using science to investigate faith is a bit like takng a sledgehammer along to a butterfly dissection.We really do have different ideas Jim Admin but that's Spiritualism as is the sometimes merry dance on here. None of it is truly irrelevant no matter how facile it may appear.Facile is fun, so is Spiritualism, we are the most optimistic 'faith group' in the world; hopefully.What we call History is by and large a record of contention mainly written by those who either won or could afford a vanity publisher. Good in its place and fair enough not to read it could lead to repeating the mistakes of the past. Would that some of our PM chums read their history. But it's not about NOW.And NOW is where we all of us, on this side and in spirit; actually live. Hence the lived experience of Spiritualism in the NOW trumps the old stuff every time and this wonderful forum is one of its manifold facets.

Hmmm Katy I think science is such a important part,, But in my mind they are not investigating faith. they are investigating the truth, and that is that life continues.. And I believe that science will except this in the future.

But I wonder with you pulling the faith card.... how confident you are in your own mediumship ability ?

And your attitude towards the past is most confusing also,,,

its like hmmm future doesnt matter... past doesnt matter.. so what does Matter Katie?

As for your comment about history being by and large a record of contention mainly written by those who won or could afford a vanity publisher - while there may well be truth in that in general terms, if one actually reads the early Spiritualist records, especially those that relate the details of their seances and the communications from spirit, and those that attempted to make public the message from spirit - you would find that your comment really does not fit at all.

Of course we live in the now, and must deal with the reality of our times. But it is important to understand our past, to be informed about those who explored and discovered before our time. In part to give greater substance to our understanding of spirit, and of course to help us to be discerning about the present

I think I would support the remark that Admin Jim referred in an earlier post: "if we did not use history to guide the present then the Spirit walks in darkness.""

As a Spiritualist I believe I have a responsibility, not only to personally live in accordance with the fundamental principles passed on by spirit, but also to inform others of those principles and the foundation for them. A movement without an historical context is not viable, nor can it present to newcomers a rational beyond the phenomena when there is no philosophical foundation, nor acknowledgement of those who came before us.

Context is essential but it cannot define us. We are simply too diverse Lis.What matters to folk who come through our doors bravo is checkable evidence delivered NOW. I 'have' no mediumistic ability whatsoever it's not a possession. I do have faith based on a number of years working as medium though that Spirit can and does inspire valid comunication between loved ones in spirit - and those they love and who love them still on this side - via mediums.Alongside that faith is a wealth of evidence from friends in spirit that they inhabit a world not dissimilar to our own except much much better.Anyone who claims otherwise is quite entitled to their sincerely held albeit sincerely wrong opinion.They are the true believers, in secularism or science or history etc.Folk who get evidence don't believe. They know.But we've always been the broadest of churches with room for all opinions and none.Believe as you must, and devil take the hindmost.

I am not talking about people who come through the door kk, I am talking about you. And your right mediumship is not "owned" by us... but it is enabled through our psychic abilty, and surely this has enabled you to see that the afterlife is more than faith? its Truth ? and if its Truth then surely you see that science has a big part to play?

KatyKing wrote:Context is essential but it cannot define us. We are simply too diverse Lis.What matters to folk who come through our doors bravo is checkable evidence delivered NOW. I 'have' no mediumistic ability whatsoever it's not a possession. I do have faith based on a number of years working as medium though that Spirit can and does inspire valid comunication between loved ones in spirit - and those they love and who love them still on this side - via mediums.Alongside that faith is a wealth of evidence from friends in spirit that they inhabit a world not dissimilar to our own except much much better.Anyone who claims otherwise is quite entitled to their sincerely held albeit sincerely wrong opinion.They are the true believers, in secularism or science or history etc.Folk who get evidence don't believe. They know.But we've always been the broadest of churches with room for all opinions and none.Believe as you must, and devil take the hindmost.

Why am I not surprised that, as is so often the case, you have not actually addressed the issue that I raised KK.

My comments were in no way negating or denying the importance of providing evidence of survival to those who walk through the doors of a Spiritualist organization. As a Spiritualist and medium with over 46 years experience I have done my fair share of bringing forward such evidence from the spirit world. I have, however, in that time learned that to bring forth evidence of survival without also offering the context, and the philosophy that gives meaning and purpose to that survival results in people grasping only the phenomena and not the deeper meaning for that phenomena. Without the deeper meaning behind the messages of survival those who obtain evidence of the survival of their loved ones might well become survivalists but certainly not Spiritualists.

The "wealth of evidence from friends in spirit that they inhabit a world not dissimilar to our own except much better" that you make reference to, largely comes from trance utterances, the bulk of this unsupported by hard evidence of the reality of the communicator and even less credible evidence that what they claim is the truth in objective terms. There are many contradictions in such material, and much, when examined closely, is to a greater or lesser extent coloured or distorted by the value systems and beliefs of the 'entranced' medium. While I "know" that the human spirit survives physical death, and that on occasion, when the circumstances are right and a suitable vehicle for communication is available, real evidence of that survival can be given, all statements of what that non-physical existence are just that - statements as yet unproven. I might 'believe' certain things about the form or forms that the after-life may offer, but I am not so arrogant to claim I have a definitive answer.

You on the otherhand claim "Anyone who claims otherwise is quite entitled to their sincerely held albeit sincerely wrong opinion." It must be comforting for you to be so certain, so sure, so absolute in your allegedly omniscient knowledge. May the 'faith' be with you.

I have thought long about this but decided that enough is enough after a lot of thought.

To start this off I must say well said Lis and Wes. I wonder if the real Katy King will ever appear, from the all-knowing intelligent person who appeared in his comment, that he knows others are wrong to the kind hokey joker. In honesty, as Admin I found this variation in approach has very few benefits to the forum and the reasonable debates that go on. Sometimes I cannot work out whether it is real or just being controversial to create arguments.

Let us review a few of Katy Kings comments, this might not be about the topic survivalist but may have issues of survival. I will pass up his one about being Wrong because Lis has dealt with that so well.

However, just for the record, the concept of a Summerland first appears in Emmanuel Swedenborg’s trance work. Never verified or proved. Many people would be aware that Andrew Jackson Davis started his work pre Spiritualism and was attracted to Swedenborg. Indeed the concepts he took about Spheres of Existence and Summerland were direct from Swedenborg but of course he reproduced this in Trance so his version is one man’s unverified trance. AJD was, of course, quite widely accused of plagiarising Swedenborg. Then he took his trance work to the planets going on to record his conversations with people from Mars, Venus etc. Yes there is much to admire about AJD but also very much to be discerning about.

From there the Summerland thing snowballed in trance communications, at the same time (also often with the same mediums) that there were more contacts with people living on the planets, with multiple Benjamin Franklins, Tom Payne’s, George Washington’s etc. Many of these could hardly communicate, spell or use grammar because they were clearly illiterate.

Now the point we have been making in most of the posts regarding trance, which Katy seems to ignore, is all trance needs discernment even if that of Red Cloud and Silver Birch. This despite the fact that this material came from experienced circles and in reality stands up quite well to review, if not totally. In the absence of anything of current value these teachings can be used, with wisdom, to help broaden an understanding of our philosophy. Normy has also informed us about the extreme steps Ivy Northage took to prove the existence of Chan another trance teacher.

However what does Katy have to say about these and the validity of trance in general, in another thread. To quote him “I'd watch out for those 'spiritual guides' though. Any entity pontificating on spiritual matters should be taken with a very large pinch of salt indeed. At best your SBs,White Eagles et al are a sorry crew upon which to base any notion of personal spiritual development. That's for us to work out with Spirit's support and there's only one Spirit. The rest of the bunch, well you only need to listen to some of the garbage claimed as eternal wisdom stemming from those quarters”

Yet if we challenge Summerland there is no doubt in Katy’s mind we are “Wrong”. There are inconsistencies in Katy’s posts throughout the forum, comments like that attacking the trance teachings and a catch all statement upon Physical Mediumship that “There isn' a single piece of irrefutable peer reviewed and replicable evidence from all the years of research.” As Lis has posted in reply to that, this suggests Katy has studied this matter in depth, a meticulous research of all the material available on the subject. That’s going some; I have not even managed to find everything, despite having collected around 3,000 books, plus magazines and Newspaper articles.

However, such study would be inconsistent with Katy’s commonly expressed view of the value of any study of history. Even on this thread, in what I indicated was a clear attack on me, which his reply did not dispute, Katy said to quote “History is all well and good, so is belief (in its place) but when what once was becomes more important than what is now and where one person's belief system is used to squash anothers then I reckon Spiritualism has flown out of the window.” He takes a discussion based upon ideas which comes from those trance teachings, where there is a disagreement again, then mish-mashes it with belief and faith. No mention of truth, philosophy and science three of the other cornerstones of Spiritualism

There are more extreme comments about the study of history being a waste of time. I tried to look back through his posts to quote some but in five months Katy has become the second most prolific poster so there is just too much of tea, cakes and cat litter to wade through to find the relevant pieces.

I would guess that by now any reader would know that this Admin of this forum is not happy, indeed clearly the entire administrative team of the Forum are not happy by recent events and the excessive trivial postings. Personally I am not enchanted by Katy’s contributions to this forum. Sadly the system does not allow me to restrict the number of posts an individual member may make.

Just a reminder of the forum heading“A Forum for Spiritualists and those interested in learning more about the Religion, Philosophy, Science and Truth of the Spiritualist Movement”. It may not be my best literary effort but I wrote it on 1st January 2008 when I started this forum. I had left another one because it was entangling new age ideas with Spiritualism.

I also set it up after John Bueschler had closed Spirit History, my sources, who knew him, suggested that was because he found that people rudely plagiarised his material with no attribution. My intention was to try to ensure that much of the accurate historical information was once more made available on the internet. Yes a site dedicated to history!

That is why this site was not really developed to be a chat forum, unlike some others and I have left it as open site for guests to come and browse. Recently I have tried to make adjustments to the forum to accommodate a greater level of chat and allowed areas for trivial items (there is also the chat box which no one uses guests cannot see the chat but other members can).

I can only wonder whether Katy might find a chattier forum drifting to the New Age maybe a much better place to express his personality, chattiness, triviality and ideas. Certainly the Administrative team considered forcing this particular matter, however, if Katy can reduce the penchant for excess trivial posting and sudden lurches to absolute knowledge then maybe we can see the value of the reasoned posts he does make more clearly. I am aware that he drives some people mad with his excesses whilst others enjoy it. However in the end the final decisions come down to the forum’s Admin team who try to be as reasonable as possible.

From the very beginning Spiritualists, leaders and followers alike insisted on the deeper function of the seance and their meetings, public or privately held. Seeing phenomenal manifestations as needed empirical evidence of the existence of spirits which was, of itself of relatively minor significance, the view, as transmitted by the spirit world, made clear the aim of spirit communication was not to amuse us, or to satisfy idle curiosity, but to assist people in their spiritual advancement.

By examining the history of the Spiritualist movement, especially those who helped to bring it into existence, we can see that the phenomena, and the messages, without the addition of the deeper meaning and philosophy was entirely contrary to the purpose of spirit communication.

The early advocates and publicists of Spiritualism were particularly insistent on this point. Uriah Clark, a significant participant in early Spiritualism advised, in his 1863 booklet the 'Plain Guide to Spiritualism' that the aim of the seance was "something more than a belief that spirits exist and communicate." Those whose "interest ends with the external manifestations or with the mere fact of immortal life demonstrated have but a very dim view" of the meaning of the movement.

Thus might we distinguish, even today, the difference between the survivalist position and that of Spiritualism.

I don't know the definition of survivalist, Lis, only guessing, but are you saying that a survivalist accepts immortal life and external manifestations, but is not interested in the way of life to go with that knowledge? I am very interested in what "advancement" means but don't have much idea. My own assumptions were that because I don't always agree witht the SNU, and have issues with the Seven Principles, technically I am not a Modern Spiritualist, but a survivalist, although I write Spiritualist on my census form. I've probably got this all wrong!

I've always taken Spiritualism to have three main purposes: To prove proof of survival after physical death: To spread Spiritualist Philosophy; and to provide healing. Seeing as the Nazerene did all three (maybe not so much the philosophy part) does that make him the world's first Spiritualist?

At any rate, in the context of those three goals, my view of Spiritualism is that goes well beyond survivalism.

normy wrote:I don't know the definition of survivalist, Lis, only guessing, but are you saying that a survivalist accepts immortal life and external manifestations, but is not interested in the way of life to go with that knowledge? I am very interested in what "advancement" means but don't have much idea. My own assumptions were that because I don't always agree witht the SNU, and have issues with the Seven Principles, technically I am not a Modern Spiritualist, but a survivalist, although I write Spiritualist on my census form. I've probably got this all wrong!

I'm quite certain that I'm a Modern Spiritualist.

Unlike yourself, normy, I neither agree nor disagree with the SNU but that doesn't impact (s) on my being a Spiritualist. I don't do churches be they SNU affiliated or no but I do support their aims and am happy to refer folk to them.

Like yourself I have issues with the Seven Principles but unlike you that doesn't make me any less of a Spiritualist or any more of a survivalist. And whether any other individual goes along the road of adherence to a particular way of life - or whether they don't - doesn't have any impact on their being a Spiritualist as I see matters.

Last edited by mac on Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:18 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : grammar!)